soundoff(24 Responses)

Fair is Fair

Detroit... Illinois... bastions of liberal politics. Well, labor unions, YOU supported the lefties and the promises they made but had no means or intentions to keep, so deal with it. You lie with dogs, you get fleas.

December 4, 2013 10:28 am at 10:28 am |

Tampa Tim

I read that the judges and elected officials are exempt from this law, and get to keep their pensions. Why aren't they part of the solution, they are part of the problem?

December 4, 2013 10:33 am at 10:33 am |

Tampa Tim

Looking back at Illinois, under republican leadership, (Thompson, Edgar, and Ryan) in the best of times, refused to fund the system.

December 4, 2013 10:35 am at 10:35 am |

FidyCents

Leave it to the Democrats to run the state broke.

December 4, 2013 10:48 am at 10:48 am |

rs

Fair is Fair

Detroit... Illinois... bastions of liberal politics. Well, labor unions, YOU supported the lefties and the promises they made but had no means or intentions to keep, so deal with it. You lie with dogs, you get fleas.
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Next time someone breaks a contract with you and fails to pay, I'm sure you'll be just as understanding.

December 4, 2013 10:48 am at 10:48 am |

jinx9to88

Whats funny is that city of Detroit gave the Redwings hockey team 250 million for their stadium on the backs of the taxpayers but want to take pensions away from people that have earned them. This sounds soooooo fair to the average American.

The Detroit area lost 90% of its' manufacturing jobs, mostly due to outsourcing and "free trade" agreements with poor countries looking to import jobs. This has resulted in dramatic drops in tax revenue for the area. Detroit has lost 25% of its' property tax revenue from private homes since 2008 alone.

Illinois' problems are more complex. It's one of those states that has one of those internal "upstate/downstate" civil wars constantly being waged. State leadership is forced to appease both camps. The conservative crowd is the downstate segment, while the upstate crowd, which includes Cook County/Chicago, is the liberal side. Their pension problems are a result of underfunding, and investments that went from good to bankrupt during the 2008 Financial Crisis. Somebody had put too many eggs into high risk baskets, just like Detroit and so many other places.

December 4, 2013 10:49 am at 10:49 am |

jinx9to88

Correction to my previous comment. Detroit taxpayers are gonna have to pay $400 million not $250 million for the new Redwing stadium, but yet Detroit files bankruptcy. Is it me or is something wrong about this?

December 4, 2013 10:57 am at 10:57 am |

The Real Tom Paine

-Fair is Fair

Detroit... Illinois... bastions of liberal politics. Well, labor unions, YOU supported the lefties and the promises they made but had no means or intentions to keep, so deal with it. You lie with dogs, you get fleas.
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Yes, and none of the GOP governors that sat in the statehouse in both MI and IL ever thought to tackle the issue, presumably because it required work. Typical righties, kicking the can down the road and leaving liberals to deal with problems they allowed to get out of control.

December 4, 2013 11:03 am at 11:03 am |

Peppy

And the liberal point and blame beat goes on. All you libs enjoy what you voted for.

December 4, 2013 11:11 am at 11:11 am |

Malory Archer

Fair is Fair

Detroit... Illinois... bastions of liberal politics. Well, labor unions, YOU supported the lefties and the promises they made but had no means or intentions to keep, so deal with it. You lie with dogs, you get fleas.

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Are you really blaming the City of Detroit for the automotive industry closing up shop and shipping hundreds of thousands of jobs overseas? REALLY???!!! Because that's the reason Detroit is in the situation its in right now, and more cities and states will follow suit as "he who dies with the most 'stuff' wins" CEOS continue their wonton destruction of the middle class.

December 4, 2013 11:11 am at 11:11 am |

Boomer in Mo

Great. You're 85 and the state whacks your pension. Are you supposed to go back to work. My current retirement plan is to die on my 85th birthday, one way or another.

December 4, 2013 11:13 am at 11:13 am |

Malory Archer

FidyCents

Big Labor loses another one. One step closer to finally getting rid of the American middle class.

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FIFY

December 4, 2013 11:18 am at 11:18 am |

Sniffit

"Yes, and none of the GOP governors that sat in the statehouse in both MI and IL ever thought to tackle the issue, presumably because it required work. "

Well, that and because they WANTED the pension funds to fail.

Illinois is still a blue state that pays more in federal taxes than it receives in federal aid, all so the red states can continue their illusion of solvency by receiving more in federal aid than they pay in federal taxes. Perhaps it's time for legislation limiting states to receiving no more federal aid than they pay into the kitty....force them to "live within their means" and "be accountable." Perhaps Illinois' pension problems would be solvable, or would never have occurred, if they hadn't been forced to pay higher federal taxes in order to subsidize red states living in conservative economic ideology fantasy bubbles.

December 4, 2013 11:22 am at 11:22 am |

S.B. Stein

If the state bothered to look at short and long term issues when it came to the pension system, they would have argued for less a long time ago. Unions need to accept some changes, but the states need to start paying in like they agreed to in the contracts that they signed with unions.

Oh, and Fair, would you like to explain why on god's green earth "liberals" would actively seek to destroy the country's education system when really the only result would be to increase the prevalence of farking nonsense like I just quoted?

December 4, 2013 11:25 am at 11:25 am |

The Real Tom Paine

-Fair is Fair

Detroit... Illinois... bastions of liberal politics. Well, labor unions, YOU supported the lefties and the promises they made but had no means or intentions to keep, so deal with it. You lie with dogs, you get fleas.
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I'll be sure to keep that in mind when there is another industril accident in a Red state due to shoddy maintenance: the ideal conservative culture is an oligarchy.

December 4, 2013 11:30 am at 11:30 am |

sonny chapman

Good Old Fair Is Fair- all problems have simple cause/effect & solutions no matter how many factors are involved. If a Dem. is elected & it rains & floods, the Dem's. election caused it.

December 4, 2013 11:44 am at 11:44 am |

yolanda

Yup, we are so lucky that Blagojevich came to the rescue and saved Illinois from those worthless Republican governors who preceded him......

December 4, 2013 11:44 am at 11:44 am |

Govt and Corps at their Best

It should be a felony for CEO's, BOD's and Government officials to break promises to those already retired or close to retirement. They should be held liable. These employees worked for you for those broken promises. 5 years in maximum security for each individual affected with no chance of parole would be good.

December 4, 2013 11:46 am at 11:46 am |

yolanda

@Govt. I believe that Blagojevich would jump at that 5 year sentence

December 4, 2013 12:11 pm at 12:11 pm |

Ol' Yeller

What happens in these situations is the State agrees to pay certain benefits in lieu of raises to state employees, because you know they don't want to pay them like the private sector. So they make these promises, but then they don't fulfill their part (what? with term limits, I don't have to be and cannot be held acountable for the lies I tell today and the promises I have no intention of keeping). So the employees, who have no real choice other than their vote, has to take these lies in lieu of their wages, with the full knowledge the crooks have no intention of fulfilling their contracts... (what? you gonna go work at McDonalds? We got that rigged, too).
All at the same time, we have the tea ba gg ers who do not understand how to open a bag of chips, much less the intiricasies of the government systems, thinking that Parks and Monuments and other services provided by the state are free and the staff that run them just do so in their spare time (probably on their breaks from McDonald's),

December 4, 2013 12:15 pm at 12:15 pm |

Fair is Fair

Rudy NYC

The Detroit area lost 90% of its' manufacturing jobs, mostly due to outsourcing and "free trade" agreements with poor countries looking to import jobs. This has resulted in dramatic drops in tax revenue for the area. Detroit has lost 25% of its' property tax revenue from private homes since 2008 alone.
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That's odd, coming from you. You used to say Detroit lost 90% of it's manufacturing jobs due to automation. Get your stories / talking points straight, Rudy.